Why white people need to stop saying 'namaste'

The yoga class felt strange, as if I had somehow gone there in a misguided attempt to connect with what I thought was a part of my identity. Instead, as the class went on, I felt like an imposter. When the 45 minutes were up, I eagerly tried to scuttle away when I heard the instructor say 'nam-aasss-tay'.

The word was familiar to me. I'm a Hindi speaking Hindu girl from Mumbai. Namaste is my way of greeting Hindi speaking elders in my hometown Melbourne or a way of saying hello to most people back in India. But hearing namaste chanted by the white yoga instructor to a predominantly white class was unsettling. Really? If the yoga class itself wasn't white-centric enough, she really had to place the appropriative cherry on top.

First disclaimer. I'm not a yogi. I don't practise yoga to feel #blessed or to find my inner chakra. This is primarily because, as a brown girl raised Hindu, to me practising yoga is much more than regularly attending $20 classes wearing trendy activewear.

Yoga in Hindu traditions is more than physical exercise. It is a multifaceted philosophy, medicine system and way of life. The asanas, or 'poses', that people perform when they go to their local class are one part of several other practices – including mediation, abstention and liberation – that are considered as a philosophical school in Hinduism.

(Link)

I guess all you can do is...laugh? If the author of this article, Kamna Muddagouni, feels so strongly about denying white people the right to practice yoga in its Western form and using the word "namaste", she should either return back to India where she will not be in danger of experiencing either, or she should also be campaigning for non-Western countries to stop adopting Western cultural practices.

What Australians do in their own country is their business, the same as what Indians do in their country is theirs. I grow weary of minorities being offended at every opportunity they can.

ETA: This article might seem insignificant in itself, but the deeper issue it touches upon is of extreme importance: denying rights to white people on their skin tone alone is socially permissible.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

And you know what the funny part is?

Most of this 'white hatred' you see, is from whites on Tumblr and other social media.

Good old SJW's who think that culture appropriation and micro aggressions are a real thing.

White people are just eating themselves alive from the inside out.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

The irony hasn't escaped my attention; at a lot of the BLM protests, there are more white SJW's than black people. Its sort of the ultimate cultural appropriation.

I think a lot of it is simply political positioning put on by college educated white kids who see their future in academia and they feel the need to polish their politically correct credentials in order to further their ambitions of life long careers in academia.

Trends come, trends go........but this one could well prove to be very dangerous.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: Dark Ghost

And you know what the funny part is?

Most of this 'white hatred' you see, is from whites on Tumblr and other social media.

Good old SJW's who think that culture appropriation and micro aggressions are a real thing.

White people are just eating themselves alive from the inside out.

~Tenth

You have to understand that this "self-hatred" isn't programmed into their DNA. It's been conditioned into the collective psych of white people as a whole through the promotion of white guilt.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

The list of what white people can do or say based on their skin color is ever growing.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Yet another PC person who needs their precious feelings to be heard or their going to cry because of "culture appropriation".

It's funny how easily everyone forgets their own heritage and the things that make them who they are; which is more often than not taken from someone else's culture who once lived before them.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

You have to understand that this "self-hatred" isn't programmed into their DNA. It's been conditioned into the collective psych of white people as a whole through the promotion of white guilt.

No it hasn't. You can't blame other groups of people for how White People choose to act and feel about themselves.

Otherwise you're just reversing the argument from one side to another. White people built PC culture, white people created the SJW movement.

And it's not out of guilt, it was out of a sense of....knowing better. There's always a white person ( and i'm white so don't get me wrong here) willing to tell you how you should feel about other people. Or how other people should feel about themselves. They always have to stand up for somebody else who is perfectly capable of defending themselves without it.

The problem in general is that having ideals like they have, used to cost you something. When you were a freedom fighter back in the 60's and 70's, your ass went to jail. You gave up your home, your job, your friends, sometimes your freedom to fight for what you believed in.

Today any armchair warrior can do the same thing from the comfort of a dorm room and give nothing up at all for their beliefs. So the beliefs get more extreme and nonsensical because they are never really challenged on them.

At least not outside of the internet. When they are challenged in real life well their little PC brain takes over and they cry bloody foul. It's disheartening.

But it's nobody's fault but their own.

~Tenth

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Any day now I expect to hear that a certain group are outraged--popular word today--to hear whites use a term that is almost sacred to this group. I can't repeated it here, but it is a very popular term today that has to do with motherhood and intercourse.

Yes, this is sorta joke.

a reply to: Dark Ghost
Strange she associated NAMASTE with peoples race
If that was the case where does her concept work if she considered some of the ancient family being BLUE...

Another strange Human segregation thinking process, it seems.

NAMASTE*******

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Do you deny the link between "white guilt" and the large number of "white SJWs" that exists today?

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Oh for god's sake..it seems that a bit further down the line someone will complain that white people breathing is inappropriate or racist or a micro-agression.

a reply to: TheBulk

I think you maybe right I always feel disappointed when I see white people with Japanese style calligraphy tattooed on them its just seems so inappropriate....... I am curious though, isn't it something pseudo Buddhists like to say also, or is that too the domain of white people exclusively?

Isn't it terrible
Indians bring their culture here and thenget bitter if we use it
Stay at home and guard your culture, keep it secret

To be honest, a country with a caste system treating people as sub human and not deserving of any mercy
Doesn't surprise me she would think that way, probably upper caste, thinks she is better than anyone else

Nam assssst ayeee
Sounds like a yodel

Well.. Lets turn the problem the other way around:

She doesn't like "cultural approbation" like using the word "namaste" out of her cultural context and BY the WRONG people.


What about her? She is..
(x) using not her cultural language, but approbiates "english". Not her culture!
(x) maybe wearing trousers. Not her cultural heritage.
(x) etc. etc., as I doesn't know a thing about her.

The cognitive dissonance is strong with these people, fighting for "their" cultural heritage!..

As a white yogi (who practices yoga for both the spiritual and mediation purposes - although I am not Hindu or Buddhist), I find this sad. What gives her the right to tell us what we can or can not do in our own country? The benefits of yoga can be shared with & appreciated by more people than just those living as those practicing Hinduism & Buddhism...

what's next ? white people should stop being white ?

Why Can't We Be Friends?
By War, War

Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh

La, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I seen ya around for a long long time
I really remember you when you drank my wine

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I'd seen ya walking down in Chinatown
I called ya but you could not look around

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I pay my money to the welfare line
I see ya standing in it every time

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

The color of your skin don't matter to me
As long as we can live in harmony

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I'd kinda' like to be the president
So I could show you how your money's spent

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Sometimes I don't speak right
But yet I know what I'm talking about

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I know you're working for the CIA
They wouldn't have you in the mafia

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Songwriters: CHARLES MILLER, GERALD GOLDSTEIN, HAROLD BROWN, HOWARD SCOTT, LEE LEVITIN, LONNIE JORDAN, MORRIS DICKERSON, THOMAS ALLEN
© Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: LyricFind

originally posted by: auraofblack
I think you maybe right I always feel disappointed when I see white people with Japanese style calligraphy tattooed on them its just seems so inappropriate....... I am curious though, isn't it something pseudo Buddhists like to say also, or is that too the domain of white people exclusively?

Seeing white people take an interest in other cultures makes you disappointed? What about white people that have tattoos in Arabic? Does that stir you up as well?

Would you be disappointed seeing a Japanese man with an English tattoo on his arm? I doubt it...

a reply to: lydie15

Her right is she isn't white. Our lack of rights are because we weren't born in India it would seem.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: tothetenthpower

The irony hasn't escaped my attention; at a lot of the BLM protests, there are more white SJW's than black people. Its sort of the ultimate cultural appropriation.

I think a lot of it is simply political positioning put on by college educated white kids who see their future in academia and they feel the need to polish their politically correct credentials in order to further their ambitions of life long careers in academia.

Trends come, trends go........but this one could well prove to be very dangerous.

I may be slightly deviating from the OP, but I attribute it to the fact that we have been raised, as people in a western culture, to feel guilty for the way we live. We are made to feel guilty for being white, for being invaders of certain countries that our ancestors took part of (although nearly every country has been invaded at some point in history), for our religion (or lack of religion), and for our way of living in general.

People have learnt to just turn against our own people as a way of making themselves feel more 'accepting' to those of other cultures. Which doesn't make sense. Why can't we be accepting of others different to us, without having to bring ourselves down?